Shimla, the foot of the Himalaya

Before I start on Shimla I'll answer a question my Dad had, What happened in Nepal? Before we left we hadn't booked either the flight to Kathmandu or the bush plane into the Himalaya and were planning on getting them once we got here as we'd heard they'd be much less expensive. Once here we found them to be the same price but in short supply and after I though long and hard about it I realized that I only wanted to go to say that I'd been there. Really I just want to go play in the snow which I wouldn't have been able to do anyway so I decided not to give it a miss.

Getting up at 5am on Friday the 2nd we caught the first of our two trains to Shimla, a town at 2200 meters in the Himalayan foothills and once the summer capital of British India. For the first time so far the train was not late and had a pleasant, slumber filled, journey in our A/C 2nd class seats. The second leg of the trip was only 95km but was planned to take 5 hours! Granted the train climbed a 33% grade so it was pretty tough going but gave stunning views of the surrounding hills. 13 hours after our departure we arrived and boy was it cold, or at least it felt it. 10c may not sound too cold especially to though of you anxiously awaiting snow but after waking to nearly 30c heat it was a bit of a shock to the system. We spent 3 chilly nights there, no central heating, and mostly spent the days walking around enjoying the peace. Though we each had a fleece and some thermal bottoms the first day Sarah had to buy herself a wool sweater but I figured for $2.50 for merino wool it wasn't such a bad buy. It was funny to see such a British influence in this remote place from their time ruling from here. There was a christian church, the 2nd oldest in India, as well as many other buildings that could have been plucked from any English high street. Sarah decided to get up early on Sunday to join the congregation for the English service(which was followed after in Hindi). After two full days we were content with leaving this relaxing place due to two reasons: 1) To get any further into the mountains would have been another days bus travel which still wouldn't guarantee seeing snowy peaks. 2) We were getting cold! I was sad though as we hadn't seen any high mountains due to the distant haze. The following morning in the early hours we could hear the wind picking up and while still asleep I was wondering and hoping that we would have a good view at sunrise. I woke to find that the wind had blown the clouds away and saw many mountains that I'm guessing by looking at maps must have been 6000m+. That made my day even though we spent the rest of it back on a bus to Delhi for 11 mind and ass numbing hours but quickly found a nice hotel and good food to round out Monday night.